"What are you talking about? "she asked, her blue eyes widening at my words. Her slightly damp, medium-length mousy brown hair hung in tangles around her face.
I sat up and began ripping the vines away from my body, using the dim orange light to see in the otherwise dimly lit room, until they were all gone. I put my hand down on the ground to push myself up and felt something wet. Startled, I brought my red-stained fingers to my eyes. Remembering who the blood must belong to, I swallowed and traced the fine line of crimson that snaked along the black, golden floors to a figure lying motionless on the ground. And that figure didn't have a head. Where its head should have been was nothing but chunks of brain matter and bits of skull fragment.
If I had been the me before living in purgatory for 400 years, I would have probably projectile vomited everywhere. Some of the spirits I talked to there included images of their death, and most hadn't died a nice, peaceful death.
"Is that headless body...Greta!?" I asked, the words sounding shocking, yet morbidly satisfying, as I registered the body wore a gray, shapeless dress.
"Yeah, about that..." Santana said, and my eyes turned away from the gory sight. "Things got a little out of hand after I broke free from her control. She tried to make me brain dead so well I made it so she didn't have a brain ."
"Santana, where is my mom?"
"The last time I saw her, she was at the table Greta had set up for that weird feast. After I broke free from Greta, I ran here.
"What about Hampton? How did you get away from him? Wasn't he in the room too?" I asked, and I had no sooner spoken those words than the whole room shook violently, and I lost my balance for a moment and almost fell directly onto Greta's headless corpse. I caught myself last second, although I couldn't stop myself from stepping on some brain which squished under the heel of my shoe.
"That red-headed girl with the half-burned off face came back, and she came back angry and with Vivian and Arnold. They began fighting, and I used the chaos to slip away and come here. It sounds like after the fighting, Hampton."
"And is my mother out there too?"
"Yes and yes-" Santana began.
"Okay, let's go. Do you remember how to get back to the room?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said and walked towards the exit with me behind her and through Greta's office, and I cast the spell to conjure a ball of light to light up the dark hallway. "But I think we need to slow down for a second and get our priorities straight," she glanced over her shoulder at me before turning back around, "like as in the soulless monsters that have been unleashed on a bunch of defenseless people in my world. I think your mother and my sister are just fine with Vivian and Arnold there."
"Arnold?" I asked, recalling the creepy little brown haired boy with the glass that had accidentally come with us to the other world. I guess it would make sense that he would be half of something since he hadn't lost his soul while crossing between worlds.
"He has scary powers, powers that a little creep like him shouldn't have. Your father trained him along with me. In fact, even your father was a little nervous with him, because even he wasn't sure if he should be teaching him how to control his powers." Santana said and turned a corner, just as something crashed through the wall just ahead of us.
I began to cough when a cloud of dusk surrounded me and choked my lungs. When the cloud cleared, I could see something moving up in front of me. It looked to be a very tall man with a missing arm, but when it cleared, I could see that it was no man at all. It was a creature made of rocks, and it was holding something in place on its shoulders, while it staggered to its feet. figure turned its head towards us. His glasses caught the light of the glowing purple-tinged ball of light that was hovering in the air in front of us.
"Devgasta," Arnold said loudly from the stone giant's shoulder and turned away from us. He pointed to the rough patch of stone on the giant's other shoulder. Debris knocked free from the wall floated up to the shoulder. It clumped together and formed a new arm for the giant.
Once the arm was formed, Arnold turned back to, and the stone giant took a couple of steps closer to us until it was standing directly in front of us, "Oh, hey, Santana he said in his monotone voice. His brown eyes moved to me behind his classes, "Hi, Neeva's daughter, I don't remember your name," he said before his eyes moved to Santana, "Did you make that lady's head explode?" he asked in his emotionless voice.
"Yeah," Santana answered reluctantly after a long pause.
A wide, creepy smile spread across his face. "Cool, don't touch her body, I want to see it."
At his words, a shiver rolled down my spine.
"Okay," Santana said nervously.
Arnold's head jerked up abruptly, "I have to go, that man we're with, the dark-haired and eyes is using Santana's sister's powers to fight me, but I have it under control."
He said, and the stone creature that he was perched on like a parrot ran back through the hole in the wall, which was already beginning to seal itself shut, and from which Arnold had just come through.
Santana sprinted towards the now rapidly closing hole, "You better not hurt her! Or I'll make your head go pop too!" she yelled right before the hole sealed itself shut completely, and she was face to face with a solid gray stone wall.
"What kind of special elemental is Arnold?" I asked Santana.
She slapped the wall in frustration with the palms of her hands before she turned to me. Her face was full of worry, "He's not a special elemental, or at least not the kind you're thinking of. He is life. Your element is to take away or give death to things that are or were once alive. He can give life to things that were never alive in the first place. Now I don't feel so confident about leaving them up here anymore." There was another boom, and the hallway tilted slightly, and she stumbled back and slammed hard into the wall. On the opposite side, as did I.
"Violet, is that you up there?" I turned my head at the sound of my name being called by the most familiar voice in the world to me. I flicked my purple-tinged ball of light about ten feet down the hallway, where the light landed on a blonde figure.
"Mom!" I cried out happily and began to actually cry, and tears began to roll down my face. I began to inch towards her across the wall until I reached her, and once I did, I grabbed onto her hand and gave it a hard squeeze.
"Oh, baby, I've been looking for you everywhere!" my mom said, squeezing my hand even tighter. We both fell to the ground when the hallway suddenly righted itself. My mom looked around before her eyes fixed onto me, "We need to get out of here," she said.
I nodded, "Yeah, I have something to deal with on the ground, but I don't know how."
"I do," my mom said, "I still know my way around this awful tacky school," she said, climbing to her feet, and I followed suit, until we were once again standing.
"Okay, lead the way," I said and held my hand out in front of me, before I let it fall to my side. I turned my head to the darkness I had come from and called down the hallway, "Santana, my mom said she knows the way out. Are you coming?"
"Elum," Santana's voice echoed down the hallway towards us, and a ball of light popped into existence and lit up Santana's face, "I can't leave Savannah now, I know she isn't safe. I'll catch up. Promise!" she called.
"Okay, be careful!" I responded, "Do you need me to open up the wall for y-
I jumped when a sudden boom sounded from the spot I had left Santana. I flinch when small shards of rock hit my face, and I no longer see Santana's light ball, just a faint glow.
"Santana!?" I yelled in alarm, and I flicked my light down the hallway, and it revealed Santana stepping through a newly made gapping entrance in the gray stone.
She stopped with one foot out of the jagged wound in the one and one foot still in the hallway. She squinted her blue eyes and held her hand up in an attempt to shield her face from the light now directed at her, "I'll meet you down on the ground once I get Savanna!" Santana called out, "Now get that light out of my face.
I called the light back towards me and turned my head to my mother, who had placed her hand and the gray stone and was already opening up an entrance.
"Ready to get out of the knock-off castle?" my mother asked me.
"I'm more than ready," I replied.